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Women on Law Review: A Gender Diversity Report

Ms. JD first collected self-reported gender diversity data from general interest law reviews at the 2009 U.S. News “Top 50” law schools for the 2008-2010 academic years. The results show that while overall percentages of women members of these law journals (44.3%) and women in leadership positions (46.2%) correlates strongly to the number of women awarded law degrees during the same time period (45.7% in 2008), the number of women editors-in-chief is disproportionately low (33%) More information about the methodology of the data collection and the import of these findings is contained in the report.

In 2011-2012, Ms. JD collected data on gender diversity on law journals at the Top 50 Law Schools as found by U.S. News and World Report. The study finds that women's membership on law reviews correlates strongly with the number of women graduating from law school. However, the number of women in the editor-in-chief position is disproportionately male. Moreover, women lost approximately five percentage points from the previous study in terms of the overall number of women EICs from 33% to 28.5% in 2011-2012. All of the results are detailed in the full report. You may also want to review Ms. JD's press release announcing the study.

In 2013, in collaboration with New York Law School Law Review (NYLS), Ms . JD examined how women and minorities are represented on law reviews nationwide, and built upon the findings of prior surveys conducted by the two organizations. The results showed that based on the NYLS and Combined Samples, women no longer continue to lag far behind their male counterparts in achieving the coveted EIC position on law reviews and revealed other noteworthy patterns and correlations. In 2012–2013, women continued to lag behind their male counterparts in the Top 50 Sample, as women held 46% of leadership positions, and only 38% of EIC positions. However, there was improvement outside of the Top 50 Sample. The results are detailed in the full report.

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